Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 2 1884.djvu/34

26 out of it. At first I could not understand what it was done for, or what they did with the scut, because in general I find it hard to understand the natives or they to understand me; but at last I found out from one of them that if a woman that is enciente sees a dead hare that has its scut her offspring will have a hare-lip. This is a superstition I have not heard elsewhere in Ireland.

Superstition in the Black Country.— At Brierly Hill (King's Winford), during the last Petty Sessions, Jane Wooton, a brick-maker, was charged with assaulting Ann Lowe, a married woman. The complainant said the defendant met her, and, after pinching her ear, scratched her face with a needle. The defendant replied that the complainant had bewitched her, and a "wise woman" had recommended the drawing of blood. The Bench discharged the defendant with a caution.

Blackberries.—Here, as elsewhere in Ireland, the phoca is said to blight the blackberries on Michaelmas Day by putting a worm in it; consequently after that day in general they are not gathered or eaten. The last two years they have not been ripe till after Michaelmas; and as there is a considerable trade in them, I hear, for the manufacture of claret and port wines, they were gathered after that date, but the gatherers would not eat one of them.

White-footed Horses.—"If we believe the following old adage, still retained in some parts of Lanarkshire, it would appear that whitefooted horses are more tender or delicate than horses of another colour in the feet:—

This is from Ure's Agriculture of Kinross, 1797, p. 34.

Proverbs.—The Urdu Instructor, a small periodical published monthly at Bombay (Education Society's Press), contains in every number a number of Hindostani proverbs well translated. The originals are given in the Roman character. A similar periodical, called The Persian Teacher, contains in each number a similar quantity of Persian proverbs.